Watch an artist bring cartoons to the real world using his phone

If you think that plain reality is boring, you're not alone. Storyboard artist Marty Cooper (aka Hombre McSteez) has been bringing his "Aug(De)mented Reality" cartoons into the real world through a clever technique that draws on both his iPhone and the transparent plastic cells used by old-school animators. When he finds an interesting location, he both draws dozens of frames to match the scene and captures it all with an equal number of photos; from there, he stitches together short videos that bring everything to life.

The stop-motion technique leads to animations that are best described as an analog take on augmented reality, with interactions that you couldn't reproduce after the fact without digital effects. An imaginary monster will cough up a real cat, for instance, while a mailbox will eat its own letters. Cooper hasn't said how long he'll keep producing these clips, but you can always check out both his social feeds and the highlight video below to see what he has been up to so far.